Currently, typical cable, fiber optic and satellite television services deliver hundreds of television channels to viewers. While viewers may benefit from this increased number of programs to chose from, it is frequently difficult for viewers to be aware of all of the programming choices available to them, and therefore very difficult for them to identify the programs they would prefer to watch. If a viewer were to channel “surf” through all available channels to identify the best program to watch, there would be little time left to view the program. Thus, the increased value of television resulting from increased choice may be offset to a large degree by the difficulty viewers have in identifying the programs that best meet their media consumption profile.
The increased number of available channels also has negative repercussions for television content providers, (e.g., cable television networks) and television service providers (e.g., cable operators) because they are faced with extraordinary competition for each viewer's available viewing time. Given the number of channels available, the viewer may fail to discover the best channel and best program for her media consumption profile (i.e., viewer profile) due to the overwhelming amount of choice available to her.
One method that television content providers have utilized to attract viewers to a channel and/or a program has been to use cross-network promotion. Cross-network promotion exists when a television content provider advertises a program that will air on its own channel or network in a spot or “avail” on another channel or network. Such promotion can be expensive, however, and thus there is a need for optimizing the selection of the channels, programs, and/or time for placement of such cross-network promotions. Furthermore, there is a need to optimize such selection based on viewer profile information. In the context of the present application, the terms “optimize” and “optimizing,” and all derivatives of these terms, are intended to refer to an improvement or increased effectiveness of cross-network promotion or provision of television content generally, and do not imply that the improvement or increased effectiveness is necessarily maximized.
It is therefore an advantage of some, but not necessarily all, embodiments of the present invention to provide computer-implemented methods and apparatus for optimizing the selection of times, channels, and programs for cross-network promotion of television programs. It is a further advantage of some, but not necessarily all, embodiments of the present invention to provide computer-implemented methods and apparatus for optimizing cross-network promotion of television programs based on viewer profile information. It is still a further advantage of some, but not necessarily all, embodiments of the present invention to optimize cross-network advertising based on viewer profile information. The afore-noted optimization may take into account information relating to the program to be promoted, the channel to be promoted, the channel on which the promotion will air, the program or programs that will “carry” the promotion, promotion cost, spot availability, and viewer profile information, such as, but not limited to viewer demographics, geographic data, and viewing data, among others.
Additional advantages of various embodiments of the invention are set forth, in part, in the description that follows and, in part, will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from the description and/or from the practice of the invention.